Food Banks in 2013?

[MrSmith]

Agree totally, there should be a strict criteria and people will only take advantage of it.

 

They need lessons on budgeting from Jack Monroe, she was unemployed and unable to claim all her benefits so she fed herself and her young son on a budget of £10 a week.

 

http://agirlcalledjack.com/

 

How to eat healthily on a £1 a day.

[BEDROCK]

They need lessons on budgeting from Jack Monroe, she was unemployed and unable to claim all her benefits so she fed herself and her young son on a budget of £10 a week.

 

http://agirlcalledjack.com/

 

How to eat healthily on a £1 a day.

 

Hey, very interesting articles them, someone should do a dedicated thread in the food section about eating well on the smallest of budgets.

[tinfoilhat]

I believe you have to get a referral from a doctor or the CAB.

How long have food banks been around for? I wonder if they have become more popular since the increased media coverage. I didn't even realise that they existed until recently. I struggle to make ends meet (and I work full time) but fortunately I don't have to resort to using the food banks yet.

 

I think statistically speaking you (by "you" I mean someone working) are most likely to go to a food bank not someone on benefits.

[ronthenekred]

Hey, very interesting articles them, someone should do a dedicated thread in the food section about eating well on the smallest of budgets.

 

Or mind our own businesses and get a life..

[Mister M]

Hey, very interesting articles them, someone should do a dedicated thread in the food section about eating well on the smallest of budgets.

 

This man seems to know a great deal:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10022123/Richest-minister-Richard-Benyon-dispenses-loaves-to-poor.html

[Anna B]

One of the main problems is the length of time it takes benefits to get their act together when you have a change of circumstance.

 

Been made unemployed? it can take up to 6 weeks before unemployment benefit kicks in. During that time you're expected to live on fresh air. This is one of the problems with short term work contracts. There is very little protection or notice built into the contract. If you have no savings to tide you over (and after a few contracts these will all be gone) you will have to resort to food banks.

[chem1st]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-22566481

 

Visits to food banks around the North East and Cumbria have soared in the last year.

 

The Trussell Trust, which runs 13 food banks in the region, has given out more than 15,000 emergency food parcels since April 2012.

 

Demand had increased by 470% on the previous year, the charity said.

 

Nigel Perrott, who manages a food bank in Middlesbrough, said the situation had worsened in the last month and called it "a sad indictment".

 

It is understood public awareness of food banks has increased since they were advertised in job centres.

 

"We've seen a huge rise after 1 April," Mr Perrott said.

 

"Before that we were feeding about 35 to 40 people a week. We're now seeing between 90 and 100 people come through the door.

 

"It's a sad indictment as to where we are today. But what we're seeing is communities coming together, reacting to what we're seeing and bringing in food to help their hungry neighbours."

 

Foodbank use continues to rise. Increasingly large amounts of working age people now require charity to eat. People in the UK do not have the right to grow food, and thus the responsibility of ensuring our citizens eat an adequate diet must fall upon the state and the landowners, for the people themselves lack the right and ability to produce their own food so that they may feed themselves and sustain their own lives.

 

Without UK citizens having freedom to grow food, those with the land and ability have a moral obligation to feed the poor. These people must be forced to do so by the state via taxation if they do not do so of their own accord.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/un-official-alarmed-by-rise-of-food-banks-in-uk-8498791.html

 

“The right to an adequate diet is required under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (IESCR),” Mr de Schutter told The Independent. “What I looked at in Canada and what I shall commence upon in the UK is the idea that governments have a responsibility in ensuring adequate diets.”

 

The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food is charged with ensuring governments abide by Article 11 of the IESCR, which enshrines that people should be able to afford an adequate amount of food without having to compromise other basic needs. The bulk of his work is carried out in developing countries where much more severe food crises are caused by rising global food prices and supply constraints, but he has recently raised concerns over a concurrent problem in the world's richest countries, where “the failure of social policies” since the recession has created growing inequalities.

 

http://www.trusselltrust.org/resources/documents/Press/BIGGEST-EVER-INCREASE-IN-UK-FOODBANK-USE.pdf

 

Trussell Trust foodbanks have seen the biggest rise in numbers given emergency food since the charity began in 2000. Almost 350,000 people have received at least three days emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks during the last 12 months, nearly 100,000 more than anticipated and close to triple the number helped in 2011-12.

Rising cost of living, static incomes, changes to benefits, underemployment and

unemployment have meant increasing numbers of people in the UK have hit a crisis that forces them to go hungry. This dramatic rise in foodbank usage predates April’s welfare reforms, which could see numbers increase further in 2013-14.

346,992 people received a minimum of three days emergency food from Trussell Trust

foodbanks in 2012-13, compared to 128,697 in 2011-12 and up from 26,000 in 2008-09. Of those helped in 2012-13, 126,889 (36.6 percent) were children.

 

People must eat.

 

If they lack the right to grow food. Then they must be fed by those who do have the right to grow food.

 

Nobody should be forced to go to a foodbank, the landowners must be forced to feed the people, or give up the land they hoard, so that the people can feed themselves.

 

Young men shouldn't be going out and fighting for this country and its landowning elite, when their landless relatives are forced to go hungry and denied the right to grow food.

[Vague_Boy]

Amazing given we are, still, one of the richest countries on the planet.

 

If that's true, why are we in so much debt?

 

Why do we have to borrow an average of £140 billion each month just to pay our way?

 

By that logic, Anglo Irish is one of the most successful banks in the world and Lehman Brothers one of the most successful investment banks.

 

 

“People say "Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world". Yeah, maybe, but you know what, after the first 3 largest armies, there's a REAL big f***ing drop-off."

Bill Hicks

 

The same applies to the UK, as you can see from this list [LINK]

[banjodeano]

Amazing given we are, still, one of the richest countries on the planet.

 

It all depends on the distribution of that wealth.

 

Very true.... times are hard at the moment but some people are doing very well out of it thank you....wasnt some Tory bragging only a few days ago about boosting profits while there is a recession...

EDIT....

Apparently we are living in an excellent time for businesses to boost their profits – because labour is cheap.(quote Lord Young).

[Mister M]

Very true.... times are hard at the moment but some people are doing very well out of it thank you....wasnt some Tory bragging only a few days ago about boosting profits while there is a recession...

EDIT....

Apparently we are living in an excellent time for businesses to boost their profits – because labour is cheap.(quote Lord Young).

 

You wouldn't think so if right wingers on here are to be believed.

Because of the welfare state people are too feeble and feckless, unions are too powerful, teachers don't educate children properly.

Boris Johnson was at again the other day saying British workers are too lazy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/13/boris-johnson-sloth-lazy_n_3264675.html?boris-johnson

I suppose Boris 'the horny handed son of toil' knows all about hard work

 

No doubt there are some that criticise those reduced to using food banks as scroungers and unable to budget properly.